In Taiwanese, however, there exists another type of kha-containing construction like (23a-b), which empirically challenges the above description on the syntax and semantics of the marker kha comparative.
(23) a. Li kha tsao ma bo hao.
You kha run ma not useful
‗It is useless no matter how hard you try to run.‘
b. li kha tsiah ma tsiah mei toakho/pui You kha eat ma eat not fat/heavy
‗You cannot become fat no matter how much food you eat.‘
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More clearly, the predicate modified by the marker kha in this type of construction can be a non-gradable active verb, like tshao ‗run‘ and tsiah ‗eat‘. At this moment, the question of whether there are any differences between the marker kha in (23a-b) and that in the Taiwanese kha comparative like (24a-b) immediately comes out.
(24) non-gradable active predicate
a. *Ong-e pi Tan-e kha tshao/tsiah.
Ong-e compare Tan-e kha run /eat ‗Ong-e can run faster/ eat more than Tan-e.‘
b. *Ong-e kha tshao/tsiah Tan-e Ong-e kha run /eat Tan-e ‗Ong-e can run faster/ eat more than Tan-e.‘
There are two possible ways of answering this question: one is to assume that there exists only one kha and the different properties are due to the divergent syntactic structures. The other is to assume that there are two different khas (i.e. the lexical ambiguity analysis): one is used to modify gradable predicates to form the basic comparatives and the other is for non-gradable ones to constitute specific kha…ma constructions.
(25) Tsit-khan tsabo-kin-na kha sui, ma be tshua tit This-kind girl kha beautiful ma not marry SFP
‗This kind of girl even though is beautiful; one cannot marry (her).‘
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However, as example (25) indicates, in the kha …ma construction, the marker kha can also be employed to modify the gradable predicates like sui ‗beautiful‘.
Therefore, the second possible analysis cannot be maintained.
In this chapter, I have examined the properties involved in kha comparison in terms of syntax and semantics, and then introduce a specific kha… ma construction that diverges greatly from the basic comparative. Hence, next chapter, in turn, I will canvass the properties of kha…ma construction in accordance with syntax, semantics and pragmatics as well.
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CHAPTER 3
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THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC PROPERTIES OF THE KHA…MA COMPARATIVE CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTION
In this chapter, I will mainly analyze the syntactic and semantic properties of the Taiwanese kha…ma comparative correlative construction from the following perspectives: the semantics and syntax properties of this construction, expectation-contravention reading, the different situation types, the quantificational analysis and the relationship among English again, Mandarin zai ‗again‘, and Taiwanese kha.
3.1 The Syntax and Semantics of kha…ma Comparative Correlative Construction
The syntactic and semantic properties of the Taiwanese kha…ma comparative correlative constructions are observed as: first, the markers kha and ma in this construction both are obligatorily required, as shown by the contrast between (26a) and (26b-c) in grammaticality.14
14 Examples (26b) and (26d) can be considered as grammatical forms; nevertheless, they have completely different meanings from (26a). For example: a situation where people have been challenged to change the thinking of an extremely stubborn old man but to no avail. Under this condition, somebody will utter the phrase ―Ong-e kong ma bo hao.” ‗It is useless for Ong-e to persuade him.‘
“Ni kong ma bo hao.” ‗It is useless for you to persuade him.‘ “Tagai kong ma long bo hao.” ‗It is also useless for everyone to persuade him.‘ An alternative utterance may be ―ni kong bo hao. Gua kong ma bo hao.” ‗It is useless for you to persuade him and it is also useless for me.‘ Therefore, based on this
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(26) a. li kha kong ma bo hao.
You kha talk/ persuade ma not useful
‗No matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody, it is useless.‘
b. *li kong ma bo hao.
You talk/ persuade ma not useful
‗It is useless that no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody.‘
c. *li kha kong bo hao.
You kha talk/ persuade not useful
‗It is useless that no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody.‘
d. *li kong bo hao.
You talk/ persuade not useful
‗It is useless that no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody.‘
scenario, the reading of (26b) and (26d) is that the speaker wants to express many events of persuasion which are associated to distinctive individuals. It means that more than one individual has tried to persuade this person. Nevertheless, the consequences of the events are just the same. Specifically, it is useless for many people to persuade a stubborn man. Example (26a), however, reflects that the act of persuasion has been repeated many times, but they are all connected to the same individual and, uselessly, the same result is represented again and again.
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Although the two markers kha and ma are not necessarily to be adjacent to each other, they must be closely related or depend on each other; otherwise the sentence will be unacceptable. For this reason, I analyze the Taiwanese kha…ma construction as a correlative construction (henceforth the Taiwanese kha…ma construction). Besides, the word order between these two markers is fixed; namely, the clause containing kha has to precede the clause involving ma, as the contrast below illustrates.
(27) a. li kha kong ma bo hao.
You kha talk/ persuade ma not useful
‗It is useless that no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody.‘
b. *ma bo hao li kha kong Ma not useful you kha talk/ persuade
‗It is useless, no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade somebody.‘
Second, syntactically the kha…ma correlative construction can occur either in a form that consists of two clauses: one containing the marker kha and the other the morpheme ma, or a form in which the part contains the marker kha serves as a sentential subject embedded into the part containing ma which appears as the main predicate, as illustrated by (28a-b), respectively.
(28) a. [[sentential subject Li kha tsao] [ma bo hao.]]
You kha run ma not useful
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‗It is useless that no matter how fast you try to run.‘
b. [S Tsit-khan tsabo-kin-na kha sui], [S (Pro) ma be tshua tit].
This kind girl kha beautiful (Pro) ma not marry SFP ‗Even though this kind of girl is beautiful, one cannot marry (her).‘
The Pro as the subject in the second clause of (28b) can be either the addressee or an arbitrary reading within this context.
In addition, these correlative two clauses or sentential-subject and predicate constructions are felicitous to distinguish the canonical Taiwanese comparative construction from the kha …ma correlative construction. A canonical comparative only involves one clause introducing two individuals, sometimes one is an explicit individual and another is an implicit one which is determined by the context, and describes their degree relations. While the kha … ma construction must involve two clauses, one is introduced by the morpheme kha and the other is by the morpheme ma, to match so-called correlative structure. Besides, the predicates introduced by kha are not restricted to components containing gradable reading. Instead, they range over non-gradable active ones. This can be applied to account for the ungrammaticality of example (24), repeated here as (29).
(29) non-gradable active predicate
a. *Ong-e pi Tan-e kha tshao/tsiah.
Ong-e compare Tan-e kha run /eat ‗Ong-e can run faster/ eat more than Tan-e.‘
b. *Ong-e kha tshao/tsiah Tan-e
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Ong-e kha run /eat Tan-e ‗Ong-e can run faster/ eat more than Tan-e.‘
In the two examples, there is only one kha containing clause, so they should be treated as basic comparative structures. However, the predicate modified by kha is a non-gradable active one that is not allowed in a canonical comparative construction resulting in ungrammaticality of the example on the one hand. On the other hand, the non-gradable active predicate can occur only in the kha … ma construction.
Nevertheless, one clause cannot suitably express the correlative structure and, surely, leads to the ungrammatical form. Furthermore, semantically, the kha … ma construction together contributes to the expectation-contravention reading, this will be analyzed in the next section. Thus, the kha clause bears the expectation reading while the ma clause provides the result, in effect, of the violation of someone‘s expectation.
Lacking a violation result is also the reason why example (29) is not good.
3.2 The Expectation-Contravention Reading in kha…ma Constructions and the Comparisons between no matter wh in English and (wulun) wh…dou in Mandarin
3.2.1 The Expectation-Contravention Reading
The predicate introduced by the conjunctive adverb ma is usually in a negative form rather than an affirmative, and all the negative morphemes in Taiwanese can
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occur in the predicate introduced by ma, as the contrast between (30a-e) and (31) in grammaticality shows (cf. Li (1971), Lin (1974) and Teng (1992)).15
(30) a. Li kha tsao, ma bo hao.
You kha run ma not useful
‗It is useless, no matter how fast you try to run.‘
b. Li ko kha kin, ma be -hu.
You even kha fast/hurry ma not-on-time
‗Even if you are in a hurry, you cannot get there on time or catch the bus.‘
c. Yi kha kong, ma m-tiaN.
He kha persuade ma not accept/ listen
‗He doesn‘t accept it, no matter how much effort you spend trying to persuade him.‘
e. Yi toh-si ko kha ka li yaokiu, li ma mai tshap yi.
He even-if even kha for you ask you ma not respond he
15 Taiwanese negative words are in fact a combination involving a negative and an affirmative. This is
shown below in their compositional relations.
(i) a. Neg + u → bo
b. Neg + e → be
c. Neg + beh →m1
d. Neg + Ø → m2
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‗No matter how much effort he spend trying to ask you, you do not make any response.‘
e. Li kha kong, yi ma buai tiaN.
You kha persuade he ma not accept
‗No matter how much effort you spent trying to persuade him, he does not accept it.‘
(31) *Li kha kong, ma u hao.
You kha talk/persuade ma have useful
‗No matter how much effort you spent trying to persuade him, it is useful.‘
The property that the part introduced by the conjunctive adverb ma must contain a negation marker immediately raises the following two questions: Why does this correlative construction usually require the occurrence of a negative marker inside?
How does this negative marker function in syntax and semantics?
Pragmatically, the Taiwanese kha …ma correlative construction is designed to express the meaning: no matter how hard a person has tried, the painstaking effort that she/he offers is unwanted. More clearly, the morphemes kha and ma are similar to the English no matter how and together contribute to an expectation-contravention reading. The first clause involving kha denotes the expectation reading of the comparee NP while the clause involving ma denotes the expectation-violation reading by introducing a negative consequence of the comparison in the kha clause. This is a felicitous way to account for the ungrammaticality of example (31). Besides, in any competition, usually, the competitor is eager for the victory. Therefore, the
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expectation-contravention reading should be precisely represented in a negative form to express the violation of a comparee NP‘s expectation, as example (32b).
(32) a. English
No matter how hard he may try, he will not succeed.
b. Taiwanese
Li kha tsao ma bo hao.
You kha run ma not useful
‗It is useless, no matter how fast you try to run.‘
c. Taiwanese
Tsit-khan tsabo-kin-na kha sui ma be tshua tit This kind girl kha beautiful ma not marry SFP ‗This kind of girl even though is beautiful, one cannot marry (her).
Likewise, example (32c) states that every man hopes to marry a very beautiful woman and make his friend jealous. However, if the woman has a vicious and brutal temper, you cannot marry a woman like this regardless of her beauty. Therefore, the predicate introduced by the conjunctive adverb ma ‗also‘ semantically denotes the negative effect and usually occurs in a negative form to convey the expectation-contravention reading. Thus, the part containing the conjunctive adverb ma is understood as the consequent part that denotes a meaning with negative sense.
This is the reason why the predicate introduced by the conjunctive adverb ma ‗also‘
usually occurs in a negative form.
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However, the example below challenges my analysis above on the expectation-contravention reading of kha…ma construction.16
(33) He-gia-lang e tsabo-kiaN kha bai ma u lang tshua Rich man POSS daughter kha ugly ma have man marry
‗Richman‘s daughter will marry someone no matter how ugly she is.‘
In order to violate the expectation reading of the comparee NP, as we have mentioned, the negative consequence of the comparison should be introduced by a negative morpheme within the ma clause. Example (33), however, indicates that an affirmative proposition can also occur in the ma clause and this forces me to revise the concept of expectation-contravention. The affirmative consequence is derived from the expectation reading which is conveyed in the kha clause is negative.
Usually, we expect that few men want to marry a woman who is really ugly, or sometimes a little fat; nevertheless, if, luckily, she has a father who is the rich. Then, this condition will be converted and, of course, there must be some men who will risk marrying her regardless of her ugliness. Given this, the expectation-violation reading works as a pair relation, namely, if the expectation reading introduced by kha is a positive reading, then, a negative morpheme should be involved to violate the positive one and vice versa.17 The pairing relation is, therefore, shown as a table below:
16 I am grateful to Chin-Man Kuo for putting forward the counter example that makes me to rethink the concept of expectation-contravention.
17 The expectation-contravention reading in the Mandarin lian… dou/ye ‗even…all/also' constructions functions similarly to the Taiwanese kha…ma construction and works as a pair relation. However,
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(34) The pairing relation between the expectation and violation
The expectation reading in
Positive (+) Negative (-) Negative morpheme
Negative (-) Positive (+) Affirmative morpheme
3.2.2 English no matter wh Constructions
This pairing relation between the expectation and violation can also be applied to the English ―no matter wh construction‖ since this construction also involves two
uniquely, the expectation reading implicitly exists in both the speaker‘s and the addressee‘s mind, see the examples below.
‗Brother cannot understand even such an easy math question.‘
In example (i), the speaker and addressee both think that it is impossible for him to eat that kind of food –leftover; however, he is against everyone‘s expectation that he ate it. Thus, the positive reading involved in the contravention clause is in order to violate the implicitly negative expectation. While in example (ii), the speaker expects that everyone knows this kind of easy math questions, but, unluckily, the younger brother does not understand them. Conversely, the negative morpheme serves to violate the implicitly positive expectation. This is the reason why I argue that the expectation-contravention works as a pair relation in both Taiwanese kha…ma constructions as well as Mandarin lian …dou /ye
‗even…all/also‘ constructions.
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clauses -the main clause and the subordinate clause introduced by no matter and wh- expression respectively. In line with Taiwanese, the subordinate no matter clause denotes the expectation reading while the main clause implies the violation reading.
Unlike kha…ma construction, the negative expectation reading in English no matter clause is sometimes implicitly involved; namely, we may get two clauses which are both positive readings represented in the surface structure, but, internally, one is positive and the other is a negative reading involved respectively, as illustrated in the examples below.18
(35) a. No matter what he says, don‘t believe him.
b. No matter what you say, I believe.
c. No matter how hard I work, there is always more to do.
d. I won‘t desert you, no matter when or where.
e. No matter whom you invite, I will welcome him.
In example (35a), the speaker expects that the addressee will accept a specific person‘s, which is a pronoun noun ―he‖ represented in no matter clause, ideas or opinions that might not be useful or even cause some negative effect. In order to remove those ideas, the negative morpheme ―don‘t‖ here separates the addressee from taking those bad ideas. Hence, the pairing relation of expectation-violation reading – the positive reading contained in the no matter clause and the negative morpheme involved in the main clause – represents an obvious meaning. As for (35b), which is
18 This conception is in line with the Mandarin lian..dou/ye ‗even…all/also‘ constructions; namely they both involve the conversational implicature of the expectation.
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similar to (35a) in structure but distinctive meanings from the violation clauses since there is no negative morpheme contained in (35b). This is derived from the expectations in the two clauses are different. For (35b), the addressee thinks that the speaker might not take his/her opinions or suggestions, so this sentence conveys the conversational negative implication reading and the violation in the main clause must be a positive one to form the pairing relation. In addition, syntactically, all English wh-expressions, ranging over arguments and adjuncts, can be licensed by no matter and interpreted as an non-interrogative reading.19 Therefore, no matter is an operator unselectively binding argument wh-variables on the one hand and adjunct wh-variables on the other.
3.2.3 Mandarin (wulun) wh…. dou Constructions
In Mandarin, there is a construction which is similar to no matter wh structure in English and this is worthwhile to mention. Mandarin wh…dou construction can be optionally prefixed by words like buguan, wulun, or bulun, which are all associated with the English no matter, see the examples below first.
(36) a. (wulun/ buguan) ni zuo sheme, wo dou mei yijian
19 Chinese wh-phrases such as shei ‗who‘, shenme ‗what‘, etc., may sometimes be interpreted as
non-interrogative existential indefinites meaning like somebody, something, etc. In Lin (1998), he treats this kind of wh-expressions as existential polarity wh-phrases (cf. Huang (1982), Lü (1985), and Li (1992)).
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No-matter you do what I all not opinion
‗ No matter what you do, I won‘t have an opinion.‘
b. (wulun/ buguan) shei dou keyi lai no-matter who all can come
‗No matter who can come.‘
According to Lin (1997), he argues that there is always an implicit wulun ‗no matter‘
contained in this construction since it does not change the meaning of the sentence no matter whether adding wulun ‗no matter‘ or not. Thus, the implicit wulun ‗no matter‘
can be deleted at PF but present at LF, so which can overtly or covertly license the existential polarity wh-phrases in its clausal domain. However, this construction does not always imply the expectation-violation reading but sometimes a free choice reading is yielded. For example (36b) can be paraphrased as Anybody can come, it involves the word ―any‖ to represent the free choice reading. Consequently, Mandarin
can be deleted at PF but present at LF, so which can overtly or covertly license the existential polarity wh-phrases in its clausal domain. However, this construction does not always imply the expectation-violation reading but sometimes a free choice reading is yielded. For example (36b) can be paraphrased as Anybody can come, it involves the word ―any‖ to represent the free choice reading. Consequently, Mandarin